Esen’s Back! A guest post from Julie Czerneda! And a Give Away!

My friends, it is my honor to be hosting Julie Czerneda today (and tomorrow!). Julie’s science fiction starts with biology, asks a wild biology “what if” question, and fills the answer with science, more science, humor, aliens, and fantastic characters. Way back when, she wrote a science fiction trilogy featuring the shape shifter Esen. Esen discovers humans, and well, erm, to tell you anymore would spoil the best parts! This trilogy was recently lovingly reprinted in trade paperback, and there’s a new novella coming out this autumn, and OH YEAH a whole new Esen novel, also out this autumn!

Today and tomorrow feature Give aways! Cover reveals! Behind the scenes! Inside jokes! but before we get to all that goodness:

For over twenty years, Canadian author/ former biologist Julie E. Czerneda has shared her curiosity about living things through her science fiction, published by DAW Books, NY. Julie’s written fantasy too, the first installments of her Night’s Edge series (DAW) A Turn of Light and A Play of Shadow, winning consecutive Aurora Awards (Canada’s Hugo) for Best English Novel. Julie’s edited/co-edited numerous award-winning anthologies of SF/F, most recently SFWA’s 2017 Nebula Award Showcase. Out this fall is an all-original anthology written by fans of her Clan Chronicles series: Tales from Plexis. Her finale to that series, To Guard Against the Dark, was released in 2017. This fall will also see the return of her most beloved character, Esen the webshifter, in Search Image.

Esen’s Back!

by Julie Czerneda

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Fans of her Blobness! New-to-her Readers!

It gives me the biggest of grins to mark the return and perhaps introduce to you my favourite character of all, Esen-alit-Quar. Esen for short, Es in a hurry or between friends.

In honour of the occasion, we’re throwing a two day cover release party! Thanks, Andrea! Thanks DAW Books!

Today, I’ll tell you a bit about Esen and why she’s so beloved. And fun. And remarkable.

Tomorrow, you’ll see, for the very first time, not one, but TWO NEW COVERS! Really, it’s almost too much fun. Nah. There’s never too much fun.

Here’s a sneak peek.

But wait, there’s more! GIVEAWAYS! Details below, but my thanks to DAW Books for not only keeping Esen’s stories in print, but in doing these gorgeous Trade Editions, released just last year! In stores all over.

Cover art by Luis Royo

So Who Is Esen? Or What?

Short answer? A blob of blue, shaped like a teardrop. Who happens to be a semi-immortal shapeshifter. Who has really good intentions…but is working on her life skills.

Writing Esen’s attempts to protect life in the universe–or at least keep it civil–makes me happy and always has. As it turned out, Esen made you happy too, dear readers. I’ve received more feedback and love from you for the Dear Little Blob than for all my other work combined.

For those unfamiliar with my work, I’m a biologist by training, an optimist by preference, and have been writing the stories I want to read for quite a while now, thanks to Sheila Gilbert and DAW Books. If you read and enjoy my other SF, you’ll find Esen’s stories funnier, with more aliens and their worlds, but with no less — and sometimes more — heart. I came across this email from Tanya Huff the other day, about Esen’s first book. “…this was so much fun. It reminded me of all the reasons why I started reading SF in the first place.” Yup. Grinning.

Writing Esen comes easiest of all for me. She’s my vacation. It’s not only the joyful mayhem of her approach to the universe. The explosions. The slime. Esen’s my opportunity to share the weirdest and most wonderful things about real biology on this world. Whatever amazes me ends up in her stories. (Instead of around our kitchen table to dismay guests. Okay, both.)

Trust me, I take the biology very seriously, and the physics of how she can change, but when you’ve a main character who has to deal with being something else—and never chooses wisely? It’s a joy and a romp and, yes, she does blow up under stress. (Take another look at the book covers. That’s Esen, every time.)

Is it fun? I think so. With tenderness as well as wonder. My underlying theme throughout is the value of friendship. The first scene I ever wrote with Esen dealt with its fundamental importance and, while there’s a fairly large and often hilarious dose of “if only you had my–insert appropriate sensory organ–you’d understand me” interplay, what Esen learns about being a good friend and having them matters most.

After all, she’s new to all this.

Allow me to digress. Esen began with a big idea.

The Big Idea

As a grad student, long enough ago, I jotted notes for what would become A Thousand Words for Stranger. In that story and the series it became, I set out to speculate on a critical what if question concerning the evolution of communication systems in reproductive behaviour. (Which took me the nine books of the Clan Chronicles to do. In a fun far future setting with aliens, because I liked that.)

I also helped teach the ecology and animal behaviour undergrad courses. One day, to illustrate the difference in reproductive strategies between say squids and elephants, I drew for my students the graph of number versus time. (Google “R K graph” if you’d like a whole bunch of them.) If you’re an R-strategist like squid, you fling masses of tiny offspring into the world at once and, well, leave. Job done. Very few survive, but enough do to continue the species. Tiny investment for you, decent return, but you don’t live for long. If you’re a K-strategist like elephants, or humans, you do live a long life. You produce very few offspring but pour on the parental care. For years and years. And years. If you do it well, most of your offspring survive, but it takes almost all you have. Huge investment for you, decent return.

And if you’re a grad student studying too late one night, you take your graph and a ruler and extend the longevity line from elephant to infinity. Have that sf-ish bent? You put a dot on that line somewhere before infinity and do your utmost over the next few nights to figure out how such an organism might exist. Ta da! I’d my Web-beings.

Not that they’d a name then, but I’d the notion. To be alive and the next best thing to functionally immortal, my aliens needed to modify their bodies at the molecular level. Remove aged cells. Prune out disease. It would take energy. Hmmm. What about an environment with, perhaps, no competition, but with energy streaming through for the taking. Say, space.

So much fun! It was almost an offhand thought that if they could remember their own shape in such exquisite detail, in order to modify it, their substance held their memories. (A wild speculation then. As it turns out, not so much now! Who knew?) They’d exchange memory by taking bites of one another. Nice! From there, not a leap to have them change their shape. Take on another. Perfect memory, insanely long life span, almost no reproduction at all. I decided there’d be, hmm, six of them in known space. A Web.

What really mattered to me then?

What would they do with all their time?

Keep in mind, I’m never bored. I can’t really fathom it. Thus an angst-filled, listless, bitter immortality? Not an option. So, if you’d perfect memory, why not collect things worth remembering? And who’d be busy in the universe doing memorable things? Short-lived species like us. Ephemerals. With our spaceships and civilizations and art and chocolate and sex…

I decided then and there to write about such beings. As long and as often as I could. And who’d be the most interesting of them all?

The new kid. The one who’d, for the best of reasons, would make the biggest mistake in the history of her kind. She’d befriend a Human and reveal the Web’s existence.

Esen came into being right then and there, fully formed in my head. As I considered her, I realized whatever new form Esen or the others take, is them. Individual. Unique. As a Human, the eldest of them, Ersh, is an extremely old woman. Esen?

Not telling. I will say that Esen’s choice of form is regularly fraught with unforeseen consequences. Biology, as Ersh would say, rules us all.

It’s been ridiculous joy writing Esen into her problems ever since.

If you’re new to her, I suggest you start with Beholder’s Eye, even though I wrote each book to stand on its own. These are more complete “this week’s adventures” than my other series. That said, the final paragraph of her first book is the very first I wrote of her. Unchanged from those days in the lab.

I think it says a great deal about what Esen is, and in what I believe.

Friendship.

Give away!

DAW Books is graciously offering three sets of trade paperbacks of the Web Shifters trilogies!

Sorry all my international and interstellar friends, this give away is US/Canada only. To enter, leave a post below along with some way for me to get a hold of you if you win – your e-mail, your twitter, your facebook, etc. This give away runs from Wednesday April 25th until 11:59pm (Eastern Time) Tuesday May 8th. So many books to win! and oh yeah, there will be MORE GIVE AWAYS TOMORROW!

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131 Responses to "Esen’s Back! A guest post from Julie Czerneda! And a Give Away!"

Haaaaaaaa I started reading your post and suddenly realised I had the first book in my shelf, bought two years ago after reading a recommendation post on nice sff novels!! I’m even more excited to get to read this now !!

These books sound great! I hope I win! –This widget should have my email address, but wordpress/”gravatar” screws things up, so just in case you could contact my twitter, socialjsmith, if no email is apparent to you.

I have all of the Essen books already and have pre-ordered the new one but I would love to win the books so I could give them to my friend Sue, I already introduced her to Julie”s fantasy novels and I’m sure she would love Essen as much as I do.

Love These books… I borrow most books from my local library, I must admit I have borrowed these books twice to reread them. I would proudly display them on my shelves at home and then read them again whenever I wanted. I welcome you to discover this great adventure!

I’ll admit to being pretty excited myself to learn what you and other readers think, Michelle. One of my favourite parts was looking at what Esen’s done in the past, and having some of those moments ::ahem:: recur?

I’ve been following you on Facebook for sometime, but with a huge “to read” pile, I only just starting to read your books last week. Why did I wait so long? I’m usually more of a fantasy fan than sci-fi, but you write such good aliens. I’m throughly enjoying The Clan Chronicles, and Esen is next in the the “to read” list. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do 🙂

I’ve heard Esen spoken of many times, but never knew anything about the series, making it the one series of yours I haven’t yet indulged. And now that I’ve had a glimpse into her world, it sounds right up my alley. What better time to start than with the release of a new book.

Good to hear there is to be more Esen stories. I loved “Beholder’s Eye”, but lost my copy a number of years ago during a break-up. Please include me in the chance to win the volumes. My e-mail is Rostov@wi.rr.com. Thank you and please, keep writing.

I’m so excited to read more about Esen. I love the feeling of the books and that so much revolves around friendship, with a large dose of humor. Both of which I feel are often under-used in much SFF. I’ll avoid saying more so as not to spoil things for those who haven’t read them yet. Esen books are on my “comfort reads” list because they’re just fun and satisfying. And of course, all the fun biology! 😉

While Mac and company hold a special place in my heart, the Trade Pact series are my favourite, though Nights Edge is a close second. I hate to admit this but I still have yet to read the full Web Shifters series.

Reblogged this on Dispatches from Obscurity and commented:
Julie Czerneda returns to my favourite of her characters; Esen-alit-Quar. Esen for short, Es in a hurry or between friends. Looking forward to getting the new stories this fall. In the meantime, I’ll be returning to the original three.

Esen is my second favorite fictional character in any work of fiction (sorry, Huido is my absolute favorite)! Julie, your sf is pure, fun, beautifully written, innovative, mind bending. I cannot wait for the next Esen adventure.

I thoroughly enjoy reading and rereading you books, especially Esen’s books.
I also enjoyed meeting you in person at a Chicago Con and sharing a couple of meals with you and my Mom.
Another thing that I remember is you telling us the correct way to pronounce your last name. Those instructions have come in handy pronouncing some of the names that I come across at work.
Thanks.

Thank you for this give away! I’ve loved the Clan Chronicles, adored Night’s Edge, and hold Species Imperative dearest in my heart. The biology is always my favorite part. I have not read Esen’s story, and have been waiting for just the right time … this feels like the right time. It would be fun to win the trade books so I can get a head start for the new book for fall! If not, there will be a JC book buying session … again lol! Thank you again 🙂 cdassler@verizon.net

Beholder’s Eye was the first book of yours I read, and I was in the middle of writing up my Master’s thesis. Esen gave me a mental break from trying to work through the structural geology puzzle that was my thesis. I found the courage to reach out to you and tell you how much I enjoyed the story. I was hooked, and count myself lucky enough to have gotten to know you a bit over the years.

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some of the books reviewed here were free ARCs supplied by publishers/authors/other groups. Some of the books here I got from the library. the rest I *gasp!* actually paid for. I'll do my best to let you know what's what.